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Hoover Had it Out for LA Times Reporter Jack Nelson: Feared He Would Report He was a Homosexual

J. Edgar Hoover/fbi photo

By Richard A. SerranoLos Angeles Times

As this week’s release date of the movie “J. Edgar” approaches, more info seems to be surfacing about the legendary FBI director.

The latest: Richard Serrano of the Los Angeles Times reports that Hoover became obsessed in the early 1970s with a new reporter in Washington, Jack Nelson of the Los Angeles Times, and was concerned he was going to report that Hoover was a homosexual.

The Times reported that a top aide to President Nixon in 1970 told Hoover that Nelson was gunning for him.

“Keep an eye on these characters,” the FBI director wrote, referring to Nelson and two of his editors at the Los Angeles Times, according to the Times. “They are up to no good.”

He also eventually wrote in memos:”Nelson is a mental case” and “he is a rat” and “jackal” and “a lice-covered ferret.”

Serrano wrote: “For two years in the early 1970s, Hoover nursed an obsession with the new reporter in the nation’s capital. His agents pumped journalists for dirt on Nelson. He put Nelson on the bureau’s list of ‘untouchables,’ reporters who were to receive no cooperation.”

The Times reports that “Hoover was convinced — mistakenly — that Nelson planned to write that the FBI director was homosexual.”

Reader Comments

Let’s pause now to imagine how the 1970 agent(s) felt when assigned the high-value, closely monitored mission of ferreting out dirt on a journalist through to pose a clear and present danger . . . to the director.

That may have felt like an unexpected, unwanted career turn. “Wonder if they’re hiring at ATF,” he well may have mused.

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Let’s pause now to imagine how the 1970 agent(s) felt when assigned the high-value, closely monitored mission of ferreting out dirt on a journalist through to pose a clear and present danger . . . to the director.

That may have felt like an unexpected, unwanted career turn. “Wonder if they’re hiring at ATF,” he well may have mused.